Exit 1, First Words
by izanyas
Summary: Various drabbles or mini-fics prompted by my Tumblr followers.
1. Aoba

These are drabbles and ficlets without titles hanging over my Tumblr (izanyas). A lot of them are for Durarara, so I thought I'd gather them up under one title here. I'll give the prompt and warnings in each beginning note.

Prompt by yamameta-inc on Tumblr: "aoba and his massive fearboner for mikado"  
Pairing: one-sided Aoba/Mikado  
Warnings: gore, self-harm, references to child abuse.

* * *

Aoba's hand hurts enough to make him want to scream. It lasts long into the night, long after he's gone home; the other boys wanted him to go to the hospital but he refused. He wears the clumsy bandage Mikado has wrapped around the wound until the sun rises and he can sneak into the bathroom to change it. The pain has kept him wide awake, and though it's dulled over the hours it still shoots up his arm and makes his teeth grind, as if he could provoke a headache powerful enough to take priority this way.

The wound is scabbing now. Mikado gave him shots against infection—Aoba doesn't even know where he got them—and cleaned it with careful fingers. He can't close his hand and he can't extend his fingers either. Every move makes his palm burn. It doesn't look like a hole, even though the pen went _through_ ; it didn't look like a hole when Mikado took it out. Like all his blood and all his muscles shifted to plug it the second the pen was out, because being able to see through a hole in your body is too horrifying to think about.

Aoba is no stranger to dissociation. He's felt it through his entire early childhood, before Ran got stuck in juvie the first time and before his mom had enough and left, taking him with her. What he's experiencing now is not dissociation. He feels every second and every minute go by with acute awareness. He can count the pink clouds he sees through the tiny window high above the shower stall. He hears every drop of their leaky faucet fall into the sink and run down, down.

Every time he closes his eyes he sees Mikado's face half-hidden in shadow and how cold he had looked. How cold he had felt. The awful pain of being stabbed and the worst feeling of icy fingers over his skin—and Mikado's voice going from low to high, from terrifying to embarrassed as he cleaned the wound he had created—and Aoba doesn't want to think about it anymore but he can't help recalling the flush of exhilaration that had taken him through the shock and the way his face had burned, not from tears and not from fear.

He still feels it now. He knows he won't be able to ever look at Mikado without recalling terror gripping his gut and excitement fluttering in his chest, without feeling an ache into the scars he's sure to have, without fighting off another blush.

There's nausea, too. Aoba sits down on the closed lid of the toilet and looks out of the tiny window; he breathes in and out as calmly as he can, as quietly as he can; he closes his injured hand into a fist and lets tears fall from the pain; and he recalls Mikado's face broken into shadow and light, the fright, the pain, the relief.


	2. Some Required Effort

Prompt by heiwajaeger on Tumblr: "Not a ship but izaya taking care of the twins because I will never get tired of those maybe please?"  
Pairing: Shizaya  
No warnings.  
Side-snippet to my completed fic Some Required Effort.

* * *

The next one to fall sick was Mairu. Hers was a winter sort of flu, the one that came with spikes in fever and headaches and sore throats, and while Izaya didn't believe Kururi had been any more comfortable six months ago, Mairu could _whine_.

He got the call from Shizuo on their coinciding lunch breaks. _"You need to come get her,"_ he was saying, softly, against the full of Mairu's voice croaking bloody murder into the receiver.

 _"_ _It_ hurts _,"_ she said, with a sob.

"Then stop _talking_ ," Izaya replied. "I'm on my way. Give me twenty minutes so I can warn my boss."

 _"_ _Can you tell him to shove it as well?"_

"That would be a little too dangerous, even for me," Izaya replied, smiling fleetingly.

Shizuo was cute when he was jealous. Especially when he had no reason to be.

Shiki waved Izaya's explanation off before he had time to finish it. Izaya left Awakusu's art gallery with thick, sweet-smelling tobacco grating the back of his throat and a need for fresh air screaming from his lungs and muscles. He let the cold bite him for at least of the way to his sisters' school before remembering the coat he should be wearing.

"You're _freezing_ ," Shizuo said in lieu of a greeting. No sooner was Izaya in front of the infirmary where his sisters waited that he pushed Shizuo behind the tall closet, next to the stairs, and kissed him opened-mouthed and sweet and warm. Shizuo pushed him back barely three seconds in and wrapped his hands around Izaya's instead as if trying to chase the ice-cold winter wind's effects with sheer strength of will. "It's like your body is chronically unable to process temperature."

Izaya snorted, and took back his hands. "Where's my ailing sister?"

"In bed. I think Kururi was telling her to stop crying when I walked out."

Izaya stepped into the school's infirmary with his face still ablaze from kissing Shizuo. Whichever Kuzuhara spawn was occupying the post of school nurse greeted him politely, and he dragged a smile back, but his eyes were on Mairu.

She did look terrible. Red-faced and bloodshot-eyed and snotty-nosed. "Iza-nii", she cried when she saw him. Mairu jumped out of the chair she was sitting in and buried her face into Izaya's belly, tiny arms locked around his hips as if trying to dislocate them.

He patted her head. "Come on," he told Mairu, with a softer voice than he usually would. "We're going home."

"I can't _walk_ ," Mairu sniffed.

"Then I'll carry you."

She looked at him in suspicion. "You _can't_. Sometimes you can't even carry _you_. I saw Shizu-chan—"

" _Mairu_ ," Izaya said, shame burning his face—he turned to look at Kuzuhara, but she wasn't in the room anymore, thankfully.

Mairu was smirking now. She looked truly pitiful. Izaya detached Kururi from himself and kneeled next to the bed to help Mairu put on her shoes and gather her backpack and jacket. Once she was buried into her own scarf up to her nose she looked slightly less like she was ready to die.

"Don't be so dramatic," he sighed at her. "It's probably just a bad cold."

"Mom said you were _worse_ than me when you were sick."

He masked his hesitation and replied, "You're delirious, now, too, I see."

He felt her little nails dig into his hand in anger but he dragged her out anyway, as reluctant as she was to leave the chaffy sheets of the infirmary. Kururi was holding her other hand and smiling.

Shizuo was still waiting for them in the hallway behind. "Isn't your class starting?" Izaya asked.

He was biting his lip. It was a little hot. "I could—"

"Nothing," Izaya cut in. "Go back to your students, Shizuo."

He looked terribly helpless, hearing this. "At least let me text Shinra to come over," he practically begged.

"No thanks," Izaya replied with a face. And then—"Stop _worrying_. I have a doctor I can take her to. I'll be with her all day, and tomorrow too if needed. It's fine."

"You'll fall sick too," Shizuo mumbled.

Izaya smiled, eyes hooded. "Then I guess you'll just have to nurse me back to health, won't you?"

Shizuo spluttered, and Izaya left with a laugh inside him, bright as the sun.

He didn't let go of Mairu's hand all the way home. Her hair was electric from the fabric of her scarf and her glasses were askew; on her other side Kururi was matching her pace step for step, her little face focused on the rhythm of their walk entirely. They lived closer to the school now than they had almost a year ago when they started living together. Their building had an entrance and an elevator and it was only a couple streets away from where Shizuo himself lived—where Izaya took his sisters every weekend so they could enjoy Celty's food and company and he could follow Shizuo out onto the balcony and lean against him while he smoked.

When they stepped into their home, Mairu crushed his fingers in her hand. "What is it?" Izaya asked. He needed his hand to call the doctor.

She wrapped both her arms around his until she was almost dangling from his body; behind her Kururi giggled and went around to do the same with his other arm.

His heart was beating a little too fast. "Stop it," he ordered.

"I wanna play," Mairu croaked.

"You're sick," he replied, thin-lipped. "Unlike you, I have a job, with responsibility, and I can't just go sleep in the infirmary with a pretty nurse by my bed to coo over me."

She laughed, despite how terribly her throat must ache. "When is Shiki-san coming for dinner?"

"Never."

But he didn't put up much of a resistance despite his words. They dragged him toward the living-room and pushed him onto the couch so they could climb halfway on top of him from each side, and he didn't protest, not even when Mairu's burning, sweaty forehead made contact with the skin of his neck. He fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed his doctor's number despite the weight of two little girls trying to prevent him from moving.

Maybe this was worth catching a cold for.


	3. Izaya & Celty

Prompt by coleridges on Tumblr: "i would Love some quality izaya & celty interaction (friendship, romance, bitter rivals over shinra's affection or any relationship between them that u feel like writing!), maybe set during ten/ketsu?"  
Pairing: one-sided Izashin  
No warnings.

* * *

Izaya rarely runs into Celty Sturluson when he doesn't mean to. As loathe as he is to admit that he devotes more attention to her than most of the actors involved in Ikebukuro, he does have her movements tracked and documented.

It doesn't take much effort on his part, because Namie is always at her most diligent when taking care of this specific task.

His head is still ringing from the kick he barely avoided earlier. He can feel how deeply set the headache is—he can feel how much he will regret the migraine that is sure to come in a few hours. Maybe this is what does him in.

Whatever the case is, Celty appears in front of him in a way he hasn't planned or at least anticipated.

She's driving fast, fast enough that he's sure that she won't notice him or care enough to stop; the second it takes for him to come to this realization is enough to compose himself out of stupor.

Or so he thinks.

Celty's horse breaks soundlessly, sudden and frightening. She takes a U-turn that would be impossible with a regular bike or car, and she rides up to Izaya's level, body black as the night, her visor filled with smoke.

Izaya can't find his voice for a moment. Celty's hand breaks her phone out of the shadow suit she's wearing, and it isn't a second before she hands it to him with a message.

 _Did you set Kuzuhara after me_ , it says.

Izaya blinks. Then he laughs, head thrown back and throat pulsing in the cold, and though he's not looking, he thinks he can feel Celty's icy anger permeate the air he breathes.

She's shaking her phone in his face, now. _I knew it! You pathetic excuse for a human being, you absolute bastard—_

Izaya stops reading before the end. He wipes the wetness out of the corner of his eyes and says, "All I did was take advantage of his demotion, courier. Even I don't have control over the police."

 _It wouldn't surprise me if you_ did _!_

Another chuckle escapes him, and to his faint horror, his voice breaks on it. "I just slipped him a note about your dangerous lack of headlights. Free of charge and anonymously, of course—I don't want him coming after _me_ , after all."

Celty is almost shaking with anger. It's interesting, because Shingen has sent Izaya the results of the vivisection he did on her decades ago, and Izaya knows that she technically can't shiver.

She's mimicking the only human that she's had prolonged exposure to, to facilitate communication.

Izaya has always found her poor imitation of Shinra's mannerisms both disgusting and fascinating.

"Just put some headlights on your bike if you want to be left alone," he says, waving his hand.

 _I can't put headlights on my horse._

"Not my problem."

Celty has smoke escaping from her neckline, just under where her helmet sits. It runs around her in a nervous circle, and then it stops, just like her shivering does. The next message on her phone reads: _You look like crap_.

"I do care so much about women's approval of my appearance," Izaya says between his teeth. Then he shuts his mouth, because he hadn't meant to say that.

He never meant to say that to her.

Celty doesn't seem to get it anyway, but now all of Izaya's humor is gone. Anger sits tight and familiar in his stomach, and disgust, and though he doesn't want to admit it, envy as well.

"You should go home," he says coldly. "Before Shinra worries."

 _Why do you care?_ she replies.

"I don't want to have to listen to his whining if you're late." This is a lie. Shinra hasn't called Izaya to whine in years.

 _Go to a hospital, too._ Celty sits up on her horse. Izaya knows that she's taller than him—or would be, if her head were attached to her neck—but somehow, like this, with her face level with his chest, she looks even more impressive. Even less human. Her body mass is indistinguishable from the shineless black of the Coiste Bodhar.

Truly monstrous.

"Have a nice day, courier," he says, turning his back to her.

He can't keep the envy out of his voice anymore.


	4. Shiki x Izaya

Prompt by fozzie on Tumblr: "Shikizaya, UST."  
No warnings.

* * *

Orihara's mistake in trying to seduce him is that he believes Shiki to be the kind of man who enjoys things tidy. Shiki doesn't. He likes it messy and he loves it honest, and it will be a while still until he gives anything back to the curve of Orihara's smile or the shine in his eyes every time they're together—until he acknowledges how close Orihara leans and how the man's breath on his face makes him shiver.


	5. Shizuo x Izaya

Prompt by anonymous on Tumblr: "Anon from long long time ago asking for some Izaya (or shizaya if you want to) at the gym! Drolling for someone or just shanenigans :))"  
Pairing: Shizaya  
No warnings.

* * *

"What the fuck am I supposed to do here?" Shizuo mumbles.

Izaya looks disturbingly composed next to him. Shizuo has grown so used to tailored slacks over the years that he can't imagine wearing anything less form-fitting than jeans; the sweat pants make him feel like his legs are naked, or like they're about to drop from his hips and leave him with a public indecency reprimand on his already long record.

Not Izaya. The running pants look great on him, look well-worn and comfortable and something that Izaya should wear more often than the awful black pants he insists on every day.

"Isn't it obvious?" Izaya replies. His hand comes up, his arm wraps himself around Shizuo's back so that he can grip his hip—dangerously low. Shizuo can feel Izaya's finger toy with the cordon holding the pants up. "You're supposed to exercise. Grow some muscles."

He bats Izaya's hand off. "Getting stronger is the opposite of what I need."

"And yet you're tragically skinny. Biology really did everything wrong on with you, Shizu-chan."

Izaya walks in the direction of a treadmill with a towel over his shoulder and a bottle of water held loosely between his fingers. Shizuo looks at his ass before he can help it and feels his cheeks warm.

The pants look too good on him.

No one is looking at them, weirdly enough. Most of the other clients are women, and all of them are already busy, some even listening to music or talking to each other. Shizuo approaches while Izaya stretches and sets up the treadmill, and doesn't know what to do.

"You look like you've been here before," he comments.

Izaya scoffs. "Of course I have. _My_ strength wasn't bestowed upon me by some god somewhere."

"I'm no a _god_."

"Yeah?" Izaya's smile is a lofty one, only the corners of his mouth curling in both appreciation and mocking; his eyes roam over Shizuo's face with obvious appreciation before trailing lower—down his torso, and even lower still.

Shizuo's face is burning.

"Fuck off," he says weakly.

Izaya laughs, bright and carefree. He steps on the treadmill and starts running without a look back, the muscles in his legs visible through the skin-tight pants. After only a moment his face seems to relax, his shoulder to drop and his eyes to go out of focus. He looks the way Shizuo does when he smokes.

Shizuo doesn't think he's ever seen him look this relaxed and contented before. It makes him smile despite everything, and when he sits down on the bench next to Izaya's machine, it's with the firm intention of spending the next hour simply watching.


	6. Mikado

Prompts by micronecro on Tumblr.

* * *

1\. Angst

The last time Mikado heard Masaomi's voice was when it ripped itself apart screaming his name; he tells himself it's better to hear it like this in his nightmares than to not hear it at all.

2\. AU

The worst thing about the alchemist's world that Mikado woke up into is the fact that he has nothing to contribute to it.

3\. Crack

"God," Izaya says when he opens his eyes. "You're so bad at making people actively hate you."

4\. Crossover

Firo looks like Masaomi would if Masaomi was Izaya. Mikado doesn't think he's seen anything this disturbing before.

6\. Fluff

So Anri takes his hand, and presses their shoulders together; and they're not dating and they're not in love, but it's almost better like this.

7\. Humor

"I did my best," Mikado says.

8\. Hurt/Comfort

Mikado knows enough about Yahiro not to want to witness the boy breaking down. Offering physical comfort to him feels more like saving himself than acting out of the goodness of his heart.


	7. Made A Fool Out Of Us

Prompt by fozzie on Tumblr: "something w trans girl izaya & the van gang…"  
Pairing: everyone has a crush on Izaya, who is dating Shizuo  
No warnings.  
Side-snippet from my completed fic Made A Fool Out Of Us.

* * *

"So," Saburo says, looking pointedly and Karisawa and Yumasaki and a little less pointedly at Kadota. "Care to tell what happened?"

Orihara's smile is as insincere as it is bright. She's sitting sideways on the driver's seat of his van— _his van_ —with her feet out through the open door, the heels of her boots brushing against the ground. In the dark of the parking lot only the silver bracelet around her wrist and the very obvious ring at her left hand shine, but Saburo thinks he could have seen the unkindness on her from a mile away anyway.

Kadota is staring at her with a hopeless sort of affection.

Orihara kicks against the broken door lightly. "Just an accident. I'll pay for the reparations, of course."

Saburo sucks in an angry, desperate breath, a scream already at the tip of his tongue, filling his mouth like bile—Karisawa puts a hand against his lips before he can let it out.

"Don't be a killjoy, Togucchi," she admonishes. Her voice is trembling with mirth. "We had so much fun."

 _"_ _Who the fuck broke my car?"_

"It was collateral damage," Yumasaki adds, nodding evenly. "No one here is at fault."

"Orihara wouldn't be here if she wasn't fucking involved—"

"Oh, I am definitely involved," the wretched woman answers. Her voice is kind but her eyes look bored. "I may have deflected some violence aimed at me onto it."

Saburo takes a second to breathe in, then out. "Deflected?" he questions dryly.

"An unsatisfied client of mine had his own car busted, you see. Naturally, he wanted to take it out on me, and I might… have implied that your van, conveniently near, was mine."

She sounds so poised as she says it. So uncaring. Saburo has never known her to be any sort of ruffled or unsettled, even when he was hanging out with Kadota in high school and came to know her for the first time, looking much less like herself.

Everything has always been a game with her. Including Kadota. Saburo can only think of one person that Orihara sees as more than amusement fodder.

The memory makes Saburo's mouth turn downward and his chest feel restless and frustrated in a way he hasn't experienced since those years.

Orihara herself is worrying enough that he doesn't _really_ want to attack her in any way, even if she _made someone bust his van_ , but it's truly the ring at her finger that stops him before he can start throwing insults.

Kadota looks at him and shrugs lightly. "It took the four of us to make the guy stop trying to destroy the van," he says. He's smiling as he says it, and behind Saburo, Karisawa lets out a very frightening chuckle. "Izaya said she'll pay anyway. Better forget it happened."

"Who drove it here anyway?"

"I did," Yumasaki says. "Don't worry, Togusa-san, I was _very_ careful."

Saburo can't imagine a worst nightmare than that of his wheels under Yumasaki's command, but he doesn't say anything. He pales, and tries to focus on the fact that at least Yumasaki _can_ drive.

Orihara pushes herself on her feet. Her steps echo in the empty lot as she approaches and puts one hand on Saburo's shoulder.

He hates that she's a couple inches taller than him. She must know it, because she smiles again, and this time no one with a brain could have mistaken it for kindness.

"I appreciate your sacrifice, Togusa," she tells him. Some of her hair is framing her face, falling from the bun at the back of her head—she's pretty like this. A little disheveled. She always looks good. "Have Dotachin text me the bill and I'll pay you back right away."

"Don't call me that," Kadota says without heat.

She laughs, and she leaves, boots clicking on the pavement.

"A shame," Karisawa says, as soon as they're all back inside the van. "Izaya-chan is always so fun to be around. You should've _seen_ the size of that guy."

"He was more of an elephant than a man."

"Yumacchi, I think we can go even further and call him _whalish_."

"You okay?" Kadota asks him softly.

It takes some difficulty, but the bent door does close. Saburo leans back into his seat and rubs a hand over his face. "Yeah. Fuck. I thought she was too busy dealing with yakuza to bother lowlives like us now."

"I don't think she thinks like that," Kadota replies with sympathy.

"I wish she didn't have a boyfriend," Karisawa whines from the back. "She's ridiculously pretty."

"She's very taken."

"I know that, Dotachin. Let a girl dream."

It makes a weird sort of shadow fall over Kadota's face. Saburo feels his guts clench. "Whatever," he declares. "As long as she pays."

He turns on the ignition, and tries to forget the entire evening.


	8. Shizuo x Izaya (2)

Prompt by voissane on Tumblr: "I'll very predictaly ask for Shizaya and fluff"

* * *

Shizuo learns that loving Izaya has little to do with niceties and everything to do with turning his own anger inside out and leaving himself soft, so he can fit himself to every edge, every bone, every sharp word.


	9. Izaya & Mikado

Prompt by yamameta-inc on Tumblr: "something about what izaya thinks of mikado"  
Warnings: manipulation, references to child abuse.

* * *

Izaya expected it, but the Ryuugamine boy isn't anything like himself.

Izaya has been awkward, sure. He's been a teenager. He's made mistakes—one of those, he thinks, probably still has its scar just above Shinra's pelvis.

But he's never been _stuttery_ or shy the way that Mikado is (a very genuine, very tangible way), and he's always enjoyed doing things he has little control over. Mikado looks like he'd rather die than let anything step out of the limits he imagines them to have.

Those are the best people to unsettle, Izaya thinks lightly.

Mikado bows deeply in front of him as he introduces himself, and Izaya has to reign in the true width of his smile lest Kida next to him grow even paler and less able to control his anger and fear. "Sounds like an air conditioner," he teases.

Mikado looks at him like he's lost his mind. His eyes don't lose their bright shine of wonder, though.

It's a look Izaya is used to getting from people who have just met him. It never stops feeling great, no matter how many replace the wonder with disgust on the long run. Even the disgust feels good.

"What are you doing here, Izaya-san?" Kida asks mildly. There's sweat shining on his forehead—more than late summer heat really warrants.

"I came here to meet someone." Izaya flicks another glance to Mikado. "Well. I've met them."

He thinks part of Mikado understands what he means, but the boy himself is still too lost in the awe of seeing Izaya throw a single knife.

"I'll leave you both to it," he says, standing up from the bench he's occupying. Kida has grown up a lot since the last time they spoke—the top of his head is level with Izaya's shoulder, now, and Mikado is only an inch or so behind.

Shizuo's timing is bad as always; and Izaya was maybe too lost in his own musings of what use to make of the kid who founded the Dollars he's been nurturing, because he only hears the bin come a little too close, a little too late. He only has enough time to bend his head and take the brunt of the hit with his shoulders—and thankfully, the bin is almost empty, so it's only the weight of plastic and the smell of trash that hit him more than anything else.

His heartbeat speeds up anyway, and his chest and head sing with the flow of adrenaline. It's hard not to get tunnel vision and focus only on Shizuo's quiet steps toward him.

It's been so long, and Shizuo always looks like _more_ of himself with the sun shining on him like this. Infinitely better than crossing paths during the night.

Izaya glances to his side one last time. Kida's face is white as a sheet, fear winning over hatred easily, as it always does with him. Mikado's is slack with surprise and worry; his eyes keep flickering between Izaya and Shizuo.

Izaya smiles, and looks back at what's really interesting him at the moment.

He won't have any trouble on the Dollars front.


	10. Made A Fool Out Of Us (2)

Prompt by kaguneko on Tumblr: more trans girl Izaya.  
Namie/Izaya + Shizaya.  
Warnings: internalized homophobia.

Another side-fic to my story _Made A Fool Out Of Us_.

* * *

The first moment of _no_ that Namie experiences around Izaya is the moment she meets her; thin-boned and long-haired and framed red by the sunset, her voice soft and deep in a way that makes the dark hairs along her arms rise in a shiver.

Namie is cornered in more ways than one that night. The sacrifice she is making to keep herself alive feels less important than the one she is making in looking at Izaya for too long. It's hard to say if Izaya notices, because she looks like she notices but doesn't, really. Not always. Izaya doesn't say anything. She bears the weight of Namie's eyes through the evening as Namie struggles to answer without sounding like a fool—without sounding like a child—as Namie unravels the deepest itch inside her, the darkest and filthiest of all the secrets she's been made to keep, and finds herself with burning eyes and trembling fingers.

Izaya has no idea. No one has any idea. Namie feels like a teenager and knows she looks like one too, because she hasn't slept in days and because she knows the forty-eight-hour deodorant she abuses doesn't really last forty-eight hours. She watches Izaya pace around her room and she hears her talk, and she can't keep her eyes off of the line of her collar because it's better than looking at her legs—

"I think we can come to a compromise," Izaya says to her, leaning over where Namie is sitting so that Namie can only see the red sun's glow on her.

She's so beautiful. Namie's never wanted anyone before she's wanted her.

She says yes with ten years' worth of repressed want burning under her skin.

The second time Namie can hear her mind say _no_ is when she arrives at Izaya's place a few days later. This one is painted in anger and despair rather than crushing realization; it rings through her body when the door open before she can touch it and out comes a man, saying his goodbyes. He stops in front of her with a frown but she isn't looking anymore.

Izaya's face is pink as she says goodbye too. And her hair may have been mussed up by sleep in another lifetime, but in this one, Namie knows a hand has already been where she wants to reach.


	11. Shizuo x Izaya (3)

Prompt by fozzie on Tumblr: "I'm sorry kiss"  
Pairing: Shizuo/Izaya  
No warnings

* * *

Out of the two of them Shizuo is rarely the one who has to apologize. He doesn't keep track—though he knows Izaya does—of each separate blunder, claw marks in his back, coming home to find Dokusonmaru meowing because Izaya forgot to feed him, careless hurtful words dripping from Izaya's tongue with habit and without thought.

Izaya doesn't apologize with words so much as actions. He says "sorry" for the claw marks with sated heat on his voice, but he puts Dokusonmaru in his lap in silence although he hates the hair that clings to his clothes afterward, pets the cat for an hour while working—doesn't even realize how slack his shoulders become when he does it.

For the hurtful words, Izaya gives kisses. He doesn't say sorry. Shizuo thinks, in Izaya-logic, that if he says sorry for one, he'll have to say sorry for all. Izaya will never have the patience or will for that much apologizing.

The words were Shizuo's this time, though. Pushed through his lips with tired, petty anger, retracted almost immediately when Izaya froze, when the glint in his eyes started tasting like metal in Shizuo's mouth. Shizuo stands in shortness of breath a few feet away from him and says, "I'm sorry."

Izaya waves a lazy hand into the still air. "It's fine, Shizuo."

It's not fine.

Shizuo crosses the distance between them with careful steps. Izaya allows him to frame his face with his hands wordlessly, responds quietly to their kiss, close-mouth and cool. Shizuo says "I'm sorry" again right into the dip between his lips, because Izaya doesn't apologize to others, and in true Izaya-logic, Izaya doesn't believe that others can apologize to him either.

He repeats it until Izaya's lips are warm again.


	12. Aches Like Nothing

Prompt by heroghosts on Tumblr: "Exhausted parents kiss"  
Pairing: Shizuo/Izaya  
No warnings.

Side-snippet to my completed fic Aches Like Nothing.

* * *

For a baby born almost dead and with the kind of asthma that'll stick with her for as long as she lives, Natsu can scream.

She was a silent baby, and maybe she's making up for that now at three years old. Regardless, Izaya can't work at home anymore because she's either babbling at high speed in a louder rendition of Mairu, or screaming with all of her tiny lungs' capacity the way Kururi did whenever someone tried to tear her away from her numerous rituals before she was done with them. At least until she starts choking, and Shizuo or Izaya have to run to her in a panic. It's like Izaya gave birth to both of his sisters at once, and he's about ready to discover his daughter sending the fridge flying just to add to it all.

"It's not fucking genetic," Shizuo says, every time he brings it up. "I should've never told you about that story."

"What's the point of having a child with you if there's not even a little bit of monster in her?" Izaya replies, and Shizuo rolls his eyes, presses Natsu's wet face into his collar, and bends down to kiss him.

At least she's always quiet when Shizuo picks her up. She squirms between them, yawns, calls Dad in a way that means Izaya rather than Shizuo, so Shizuo transfers her to Izaya's arms, where she proceeds to start squeezing his ribs with all the strength of her small, soft arms.

It's not much, but Izaya's been wearing a binder all day, so it still hurts.

"I wanna play," she says in an authoritative voice that she can't have inherited from anyone but Mairu.

("You filthy, deluded liar," Mairu had told him. "Who do you think I inherited that from?")

"I'll play with you if you stop yelling," Izaya replies.

Natsu smiles, all teeth, her nose still dribbling clear snot from her latest tantrum. Izaya cards fingers through her hair, looks up at the ceiling, and ignores the warmth of Shizuo's eyes on his nape.

It wasn't so long ago that he could barely look at her, let alone hold her. It feels like an eternity.


	13. Namie x Izaya

Prompt by kaguneko on Tumblr: "Awkward kiss"  
Pairing: Namie/Izaya  
No warnings.

Izaya is a trans woman in this story.

* * *

Namie put the tea by Izaya's hand on her desk. "Finish it this time."

"Mmh," was Izaya's reply.

"I'm serious," Namie said. She was frowning, fatigue heavy on her back and making her left eye twitch intermittently. The previous night had been filled with nightmares that she had no name for, leaving her gasping and drenched in sweat, her face wet with her own tears.

She'd been in an understandably foul mood all day.

"This is the only thing you drink, I don't have time to nurse you back to health if you end up dehydrated in this weather."

Izaya's hand grasped the handle of the mug, brought it to her lips as it was—scalding and oversteeped. She drank from it without indicating discomfort at either, eyes meeting Namie's over the brim and making additional heat crawl up Namie's neck—before putting the mug back down with a soft click of porcelain on glass. "Happy now?"

Namie nodded, words caught sort in her mouth.

Then Izaya stood up, never looking away from her, and kissed her.

Namie's entire mind shut down, limbs frozen and blood rushing to her head. For a moment she stood there with no thought in her mind but for the unbearable wet-soft of Izaya's lips on her dry-bitten ones; then she stepped back, heart pulsing in her throat, and spluttered.

"Wh-what—"

"Was that your first kiss?" Izaya asked, voice strangely kind.

Namie clenched her teeth anyway. Her head was burning, and her eyes were growing wet, to her greatest horror.

She didn't react when Izaya slid a hand up her arm; she looked to her side, something frighteningly close to a sob catching in her throat, and let Izaya approach slowly.

"Hey," Izaya said. Namie felt the air move with her voice, brushing high on her cheek.

She loosened her jaw. "Don't you fucking dare—"

"I'm not going to make fun of you, Namie."

Namie looked at her. Izaya looked pensive, her voice harsher now but without a glint of amusement in it. She sighed, after a second, and caught stray strands of hair behind her ear—her other hand was still at Namie's elbow.

"I wanted to do that," she said. If Namie didn't know her better, she would've thought Izaya sounded apologetic. "I thought you did too. Looks like I was mistaken."

She let go of Namie's arm, soft fingers tingling along her skin as they left, and Namie barely had time to think of a way to fix this before her own hands were taking hold of Izaya's shoulders and dragging her closer.

Their lips met more harshly this time, Izaya's noise of surprise melting into a purr against her despite the ache of the contact. Izaya's hand slipped under Namie's hair to clutch her nape warmly, running shivers through Namie's entire body. Namie leaned into the kiss with tremors in her chest and then stilled, elated and frightened at once.

Izaya breathed against her lips. She tilted her head, used her other hand to push back Namie's hair; Namie felt her open her lips with a jump of heat, felt Izaya's teeth nip at her bottom lip and then suck it between her own, and her throat made a sound that she had no name for, honest and embarrassing.

Izaya laughed. "Open your mouth," she said, releasing Namie's stinging lip.

So Namie did.

She let Izaya guide her through the motions of it without knowing what to do with her own hands; her fingers shook when Izaya licked into her mouth, saliva wet on and around her lips, but she couldn't bring herself to raise them and hold any part of Izaya close. Izaya didn't seem to mind. She was stroking Namie's nape, keeping her hair out of the way pressing a thumb to her temple. She hummed happily when Namie leaned back to break the kiss and pecked just under her eye softly.

"That was nice," she said into the following silence. Tranquil.

Namie couldn't answer. There was heat inside of her that she was scared to let out; when Izaya's hand went down from her neck to link their fingers together, she could only squeeze back and hope that the message went through.


	14. Hundred-Dollar Rum

Prompt by kaguneko on Tumblr.

Side-snippet from my completed fic **Hundred-Dollar Rum**.

* * *

The girl who had just arrived to Non's birthday party was easily the most eye-catching person in the immediate vicinity. A lot of it had to do with the fact that she had come in with a guy—tall, hair dyed a very pale blond, somehow classically handsome despite it, who spoke in a low rumble of a voice, almost shyly. The image wasn't broken even after he started swearing, profusely, in the company of that odd group Non sometimes hung out with. Kadota or whatever and his friends.

But it wasn't jealousy for that man's attention that Mikage felt while looking at the girl, Vorona, long after they'd been introduced to each other. She had kept her eyes level with her face then, which was hardly less distracting, what with the cold blue eyes and soft hair and _freckles_ —but once Vorona had turned away to follow the rest of the tour, Mikage let her eyes fall down the length of her body quickly, taking in the endless stretch of her legs under the hem of her shorts, the width of her shoulders.

She didn't feel warm only from the beer when she took another settling sip.

The problem with student parties, outside of the fact that Mikage wasn't a student herself, was that none of the girls were interested. She had stopped trying to engage conversation and prod the waters after the first time it had gone south on her, years ago now. Finding company for the night or more wasn't worth the risk. Mikage didn't she could have made her intentions clearer if she'd written them sharpie-bright on her forehead, but somehow people still found the energy to be surprised and, on the wrong occasion, offended.

So she stayed in her corner for the following hours, buried deeply into the limp couch of Non's living-room, chatting with Rio when she came by and no one the rest of the time. She kept her eyes on the foreign girl for most of the evening, absently, thoughtlessly; she watched the bend of her nape when she drank, eyed the obvious definition of muscle in her bare arms, lax as they were now. She spied on the side of Vorona's face for any hint of a smile, wondering what she would look like with it.

Then, around midnight, Vorona turned around to look at her with a raised eyebrow, and Mikage choked into her glass and turned aside bodily.

She could feel the blush crawl its way up her neck and cheeks. "Excuse me," she gritted out, heart beating in her throat; the guy sitting next to her—Ryuu-something, she hadn't been able to catch his name right when he said it—made a nervous sound of agreement and dragged his feet toward himself to make room. Mikage extracted herself out of the couch on weak legs, and it took her a while to chase away the rush of standing up after sitting and drinking for so long.

Her mind cleared as she walked to the thankfully empty bathroom. She rested her glass atop a cabinet and drank directly from the faucet, splashing water onto her face until she was drenched. It didn't help much with the warmth.

"Shit," she let out.

She should've known better than to stare like that. The shame was eating at her, acid on her tongue, twisting in her stomach.

The shirt she was wearing was wet at the collar now. She glanced at the fluffy towels hung from the radiator next to her but decided against using them, though she knew Non would be unlikely to notice or mind; she wiped her mouth with her sleeve and, hearing the door open behind her, said, "I'll be done in a sec, sorry."

"Acknowledged," replied a deeply accented voice.

Mikage's eyes lifted to look into the mirror above the sink. She met Vorona's even stare through it, and if she had blushed before now her skin was losing all of its blood, leaving her pale and blue-veined under the lamp's harsh glow.

She swallowed. "Hey," she offered, turning on her heels to face her. "Ah, sorry about… I'll just—I'll let you use the bathroom."

Vorona showed no sign of moving away from the entrance of the room, though, and so Mikage didn't step forth. The porcelain edge of the sink was digging into her lower back.

"You were appraising me," Vorona said.

Mikage sucked in a quick breath. "I… no, I. Um." She looked at the white ceiling, then at the shower curtain, then back at Vorona herself. Her expression was unreadable. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel weird."

"Weird lacks a definite meaning. It does not match how I felt well enough."

Oh, God. That bad, then.

"I'm so sorry—"

"You were appraising me," Vorona repeated, cutting her off. She took a step forward under Mikage's no doubt bewildered staring and asked, "Did I meet your approval?"

Mikage's mouth opened and closed without sound.

"What?" she managed after a second of stupor.

Vorona waved a hand by her side in dismissal of something. "You are interested," she said. She was a lot closer now, barely a meter away, and the dig of the sink into Mikage's back was starting to hurt with how badly she was pressing back. "In me. Sexually."

She was taller than Mikage by a handful of inches, lean and skinny where Mikage stood bulkier. The line of her collar dipped low over her breasts, and Mikage couldn't help but dart a glance there, one which made Vorona's mouth twitch almost in humor. Her lips were cut through diagonally by a faint white line. Her freckles looked almost black on her nose in that sort of unflattering light.

She was gorgeous.

"Yeah," Mikage admitted, heart beating in her throat. "You're hot. But I shouldn't have stared at you like that, and I'm really sorry."

"Apologies are unnecessary."

Mikage's noise of confusion died on her tongue as Vorona grabbed her shoulders, her palms pressed flatly over the thick of them. She stroked them down to arm and back to neck, and her fingers settled there, touching the protruding vertebrae at her nape, thumbing the length of her throat.

"Your name?" Vorona asked softly.

When Mikage swallowed, Vorona's thumbs followed the movement over her skin. "Sharaku Mikage," she replied.

"Sharaku Mikage." Vorona leaned down, until the difference in their heights was gone and her words died over Mikage's lips, wine-sweet, warm. "You have my approval too."

"That's good," Mikage breathed, stepping away from the sink, "yeah, that's really—"

The first smile Vorona ever gave her was pressed onto her mouth, the curve of her scarred lips putting them out of alignment. Mikage grabbed her by the hair as soon as her brain made sense of the fact that this was consent, this was _approval_ ; she fit her palm against Vorona's scalp and dragged her top lip in between hers, met her tongue until she tasted nothing but the wine, nothing but the heat. She heard herself moan when Vorona's hands came down from neck to hip, pressing over her chest on their way, and soon enough it was skin-to-skin warmth she felt, Vorona's fingers tugging her shirt out of her jeans and stroking her hips, digging into her.

She gasped out of the kiss when Vorona's thigh rubbed between her legs. For a moment she could do nothing but breathe through it, and Vorona let her, rubbing her thumbs against Mikage's hipbones and staying her thigh as it was, neither pressing up nor drawing back.

She bent down easily when Mikage dragged her again. This kiss was no less sweet and heated, although a lot shorter. Her eyes looked gray now, almost white. The scar stood up starkly against her swollen lips.

"Let's ditch this party," Mikage said, once she was done sucking on it.

Vorona's second smile was a sharp and satisfied thing, and it made pressure unfold at the base of Mikage's spine, made her palms tingle and her lips ache.

"Agreed."


	15. Shizuo x Izaya (4)

Prompt by actually-the-devil on Tumblr: "routine kisses where the other person presents their cheek/forehead for the hello/goodbye kiss without even looking up from what they're doing"

* * *

Stepping into the Shinjuku penthouse is a much more foreign feeling now than it used to be. The more Celty does it and the less she seems to remember anything about the place. It has nothing at all to do with the changes that have been made in it to accommodate Izaya's condition either—the ramps where steps used to be, the seat that slides up the stairs to the upper floor of the loft, Izaya's own wheelchairs occasionally sat in the middle of door frames where he left them to walk instead. Celty would not have felt that there was any difference at all were it still only Izaya's home; but it is _Izaya and Shizuo's home_ , now.

"Gimme a sec," Shizuo mumbles at her once she steps through the doorway. He smiles quickly when she squeezes his shoulder in answer, then turns his back to her, gesturing to the couches. He climbs up the stairs while she heads there.

Izaya is in one of them, sitting sideways, his legs taking up too much room for her to be able to sit with him even if she wanted to. She doesn't want to, so she falls into the one opposite his, and Izaya's smile toward her is dark and amused. He doesn't talk to her, only goes back to jotting down quick notes out of whatever the person he's on the phone with tells him.

She doesn't think he means anything with the open hostility. He just likes to put up a front, to keep going as though she's ever cared that he resents and envies her.

Celty has a better understanding of Izaya now than she ever wished to.

"Thank you," he says to his caller. "I'll get started on it as soon as you wire me the money. Pleasure to do business with you as always."

Celty types a message while he hangs up, her fingers too quick for the human eye to follow. _Do they ever believe you when you say that?_ she asks, turning the screen of her phone his way.

"Good day to you too," Izaya replies without looking. He's typing something, too, almost as fast as her. When he's done, he flicks her a quick glance. "You'd be surprised," he answers with a smile. "Most of them were so desperate for good services while I was gone, they're practically falling over each other thanking me."

 _I'm guessing this is the first time anyone's thankful for your presence._

"Do you really want to antagonize me on the day I'm loaning Shizu-chan to you? I could keep him."

 _He's not your property_ , Celty protests.

"I'm not your property," Shizuo says from the top of the stairs.

He's coming back down, blushing slightly at the way they both turn to look at him. At least now he seems dressed for the day; Celty wasn't wrong when she thought, looking at him earlier, that he must still be in his sleepwear. He doesn't linger once he reaches their level, just heads into the kitchen, muttering _tea_ under his breath.

Celty looks at Izaya again. He smirks at her and says, "I gave him a bit of a late start, if you know what I mean."

She's not often truly grateful for how inhuman her body is, but she is now, with the sure knowledge that if not for it she would probably be blushing. Izaya acts like she is anyway; his smile widens.

He's turned back to his phone by the time Shizuo comes out of the kitchen, mug in hand.

"What're you gonna do all day anyway?" Shizuo asks. He flashes Celty a better smile than before and leans against the back of Izaya's couch. "You should just come with us."

"Beaches aren't kind to wheelchairs."

"You could walk."

Izaya makes a face. "Not today," he replies, clipped.

"All right," Shizuo murmurs.

Celty turns on the screen of her phone once more. _We could carry you_ , she writes. _It's a private beach. Shinra's father's property. There won't be anyone else but us around._

Izaya is smart enough to recognize a peace offering when he sees one, never mind the fact that Celty has felt no need for war in years. He gives her a slightly more respectful nod and says, "I just have work to get done. You three enjoy yourselves. Hopefully that fish monster I've been hearing about won't eat you. Though," he adds, lips twitching, "I wonder if anything's able to stomach Shinra."

"We'll eat it first," Shizuo replies.

"Always an animal, Shizu-chan."

Izaya doesn't look away from whatever he's doing as Shizuo leans down—he just lifts his head in offering, so Shizuo can press his lips to his forehead and linger there for a second. "You be nice to Mizuchi," he says before pulling away.

"I'm always nice to Yahiro-kun." Izaya looks up from his phone to stare at Celty once more. "I want him back before ten," he says.

Celty's answer is up almost before he can finish: _Midnight. Non-negotiable_.

"Eleven and I'll let that time with Kadota and the guns slide. Don't think I've forgotten, courier."

"Keep that up and I'm not spending my day off with either of you," Shizuo says flatly. "I'll come home whenever the fuck I want."

Izaya pouts. Celty isn't proud enough to deny that, given the chance, she would do the same.

Still, she thinks as Shizuo and herself head out—it's good that things are the way they are now. She can deal with the changes.


	16. Shizuo x Izaya (5)

Prompt by godscape on Tumblr.

* * *

Izaya prided himself for honesty toward himself regardless of his one (two) glaring exception, but he didn't think he would ever be ready for the truth of why, exactly, he was being so reckless.

Maybe it had to do with boredom, he thought fleetingly. Maybe it had to do with unspent energy, maybe it was just that bothering Shizuo to the point of blind anger had always been one of his favorite pastimes. That must be it.

Still. He had no preparations for Shizuo actually catching him.

"I'm going to fucking _kill you_ ," was the first savage declaration, and Izaya would have found it pathetically predictable were it not for his windpipe crushed under Shizuo's palm, his nape stuck against a solid wall.

He grinned despite the bright pain in his lungs. They burned from the chase and they burned from not being allowed to expand fully, to repair the damage that effort had done.

Shizuo wasn't even out of breath. If his voice was thin, his eyes blown open and his face red, it was all from fury.

"Congratulations," Izaya wheezed.

" _Shut up_."

"Surely you wouldn't waste your victory with my silence—"

The hand at Izaya's neck tightened, not warning but execution, and Izaya's mind went blissfully empty, his body hollowed and his tension snapping apart, and.

And.

That was a bad thing. Not unexpected, considering the last time someone had a hand wrapped around his neck, but he thought for sure Shizuo would act as a deterrent to any sort of pleasure. His own hands had shot up to grab Shizuo's wrist and uselessly try to pull it away.

"I've been waiting for this for a long fucking time," Shizuo said, unaware of the heat that crackled up Izaya's spine the second his grip relaxed. He didn't even notice that he was bleeding, out of every sharp cut that Izaya's nails had drawn in his skin. "What am I gonna do with you now, pest?"

He was still pinning Izaya's entire weight to the wall with only a wrist. He didn't even need to apply any visible effort. Izaya's mind processed this in slow bursts, as if dragging itself through mud.

He managed a smile.

"What indeed," he replied pleasantly. That his voice came rough and painful was of no consequence now; Shizuo would not show mercy, of this he was sure. "Do I get a phone call?"

"Who the fuck would you call?"

 _No one_ , Izaya thought. "The police," he answered, lips stretched painfully. "I always did say you belong in a cage."

Izaya thought about his options in the time it took for Shizuo to understand the insult. He watched Shizuo's lips curl back over his teeth and considered the advantages of drawing a knife now, eyed the thick darkness surrounding them and thought of the off-chance anyone would walk by if he screamed who would be willing to call for help; and Shizuo chose this moment to step closer, until Izaya felt all the cold winter around him dissipate out of sheer proximity and Shizuo's own body warmth find resonance in himself. Shizuo wasn't, apparently, exception enough that Izaya would misname the heat tightening low in his belly.

"Do you want to stretch the moment, then?" he asked, to gain time and to distract himself. "Never took you for the kind to play with your food, but I guess I can accommodate you this time. I promise I'll scream if you hit hard enough."

"I'm thinking."

"Well, think fast. I haven't got all night."

Shizuo didn't answer. His calm breath washed over Izaya's face warmly. It didn't even smell bad—it never did—but Izaya found himself holding his anyway, too aware of the fact that Shizuo would be able to feel the ever fastened beat of his heart under his palm. He would feel him swallow, if Izaya allowed it.

He didn't.

"Why are you here, Izaya?" Shizuo asked quietly.

Izaya wished he had a truth to tell about this that didn't make him want to vanish into thin air.

"Vast question," he answered. "My mother loves my father very much, you see, and when two adults—" he choked when Shizuo's hold tightened warningly, unable to stop himself from laughing. "Sensitive, are we," he rasped. "I thought only teenagers had this sort of knee-jerk reaction to mentioning sex."

Izaya expected Shizuo to flinch with childish embarrassment, to betray the same shame that had shaken him when they were still young and Izaya brought up the topic, but he didn't. His gaze stayed unwavering.

"Or," Izaya said, "maybe you _have_ grown a bit. Who in their right mind allowed you to touch them, Shizu-chan?"

 _There_ was the outrage—Shizuo's lips curled again in a snarl that would have warranted a grown were he truly an animal, and he said, "Shut the fuck up."

"This is amazingly, frankly. I always thought you'd die a virgin."

"Yeah?" Shizuo cut in, pressing even closer. Izaya's words died on his tongue. "You think about that often, _Izaya_?"

Izaya stilled.

In all the years they had known each other, through all the fights and chases, that was the one thing he had never done. He wasn't foolish enough not to notice that he refused himself these insinuations either—and he couldn't tell, wouldn't tell, if he refused them out of self-preservation or simply because there was something very pure, very wholesome about the untainted hatred Shizuo held for him.

Izaya's own hatred wasn't so unsoiled. He had never allowed himself to communicate any of it, he knew that. He had made sure of that.

He felt anger, now, unbridled and almost shaking. It crawled up the pressurized space of his throat and sank nail-first into his head. It made it very easy to fall into a relaxed slouch against the wall of the alley, in spite of the hand holding him by the neck, _thanks_ to the hand holding him by the neck.

Shizuo had no idea what he was getting himself into. He would regret this more than he would regret allowing Izaya to flee.

"Should I?" Izaya said softly. "Do you like that idea, Shizu-chan?"

Shizuo's face lightened with his confusion. Izaya took that lapse of time to raise a hand again, and he smiled at the immediate wariness Shizuo showed, even though he was holding no blade. His fingers came to rest around Shizuo's wrist again, much more loosely than before.

"If I told you that I have thought about you having sex before," Izaya went on, "I wonder what you'd do?"

"Stop fucking lying," Shizuo growled predictably.

Izaya's laughter was smoother now, lower than its usual pitch. The kind of laughter he reserved for other nightly activities. "I'm not lying," he said. "I always wondered if there people suicidal enough to want to bed you."

"You're suicidal enough to want to piss me off."

"I am, indeed. Does that make me fit your criteria for a partner?"

"What are you doing," Shizuo breathed.

Izaya smiled thinly, gently. Eyes lidded over and body relaxed in the grip of the beast.

He had been in this position too many times, with too many people, to be afraid of it—and _that_ was what Shizuo, in his holy anger, would have no inkling of.

"Is that what you want, Shizuo?" Izaya let Shizuo's name stretch in his mouth like warmed caramel, not thinking of the line he was toeing, not thinking of the catch in Shizuo's breath, looking for the anger and disgust he wanted. His thumb stroked the inside of Shizuo's wrist, right over the ridges of his veins. He would cut through them one day, he knew. "You're making this last so long," he said in no more than a whisper. "You've caught me, after all these years—do you expect a reward? I'll give it to you."

Shizuo stared at him, stricken. He looked almost numb with surprise.

"You can't want this," he replied eventually. "You're… you're messing with me."

Having Shizuo think things this way—Izaya not wanting it, when it was the other way around—was the sort of exhilaration found at the edge of a rooftop. Izaya, when he breathed, felt nothing short of drunk.

"Try me," he said.

And he waited for the rage, for the bone-deep revulsion that this one too many drop would renew; he waited for Shizuo's hand to tighten around his neck and finally cut the breath out of him until he dripped out of consciousness with vicious glee on his tongue, with unbearable heat in his loins; he mourned for Shizuo's unspoiled hatred that he would never meet again, now that he had tainted it.

Instead, Shizuo kissed him.

Izaya didn't close his eyes. He didn't move at all. He stood, swept clean of every thought, as Shizuo's warm lips pressed onto his in the dark of this rundown alley, out of light and out of sight.

He felt his mouth accommodate Shizuo's almost automatically despite the stillness that had taken him body and mind—and Shizuo was slow, tentative, not at all what he had sometimes imagined in flickers of unwanted (wanted) dreams, a soft and inexorable presence, from the breadth of his shoulders and to the closeness of his hips. Because Izaya was kissing back, he didn't stop. Because Izaya took in a shaky breath, because Izaya opened his mouth to him, the hand around his neck turned bracing, fitting itself to the side and stroking shivers through his skin.

Izaya's own hand slid from Shizuo's wrist to rest at his elbow, when Shizuo's fingers dragged upward to catch the back of his head, to tread through his damp hair. Izaya's blinks turned slower, turned longer; eventually he didn't blink at all, eyes closed through the rolling heat, answering every flick of Shizuo's tongue, and—Shizuo wasn't supposed to kiss so well, he was never supposed to kiss at all, certainly not as if Izaya was something he ever wanted to hold this tenderly.

Izaya was never supposed to enjoy this. He was never supposed to moan faintly into it as he did then, never supposed to arch his neck into the curve of Shizuo's hand to better respond to him.

Shizuo should be crushing the air out of him with his hands. He should be biting him until he bled. He should be pinning him to the wall until Izaya had no choice but to struggle free for fear of—

Shizuo's other hand came to rest at Izaya's hip, gentle, and Izaya realized that he had never felt more trapped than he did in that man's loose embrace. He opened his mouth when Shizuo pulled away, and found that he couldn't speak at all. Shizuo's lips trailed down the side of his face and came to rest at his neck. He kissed there wetly, all of his body aligned with Izaya's, scorching heat everywhere they touched, and Izaya… Izaya couldn't breathe.

His heart was beating at the roof of his mouth. His throat constricted until no air went through. Shizuo stilled against him.

"Izaya?" he asked, lifting his head.

Whatever he saw on Izaya's face made him let go as if he were holding hot coal.

"Izaya—fuck, I thought—"

"Get off me," Izaya said.

Shizuo stepped away almost before he was finished speaking.

In a way, this was hilarious. Shizuo had spent so long trying to catch him, and now that he had him, he was giving him a wide opening to leave. Izaya thought he would have found the strength to laugh if he weren't hyperventilating.

His fingers slipped on the handle of his knife when he took it out of his pocket. He brandished it shakily, not raised nearly high enough, and yet Shizuo said nothing. He didn't approach, he didn't grow defensive. Izaya didn't look at his face.

He stayed like this until his breathing quieted. Shizuo didn't try to move in any way.

"Let's call tonight a draw," Izaya said, once he was reasonably sure his voice wouldn't break.

"A dr—what the _fuck_?"

"I admit that I hate to lose, but—"

"Izaya," Shizuo cut in. He sounded angry again, which was reassuring. More reassuring than the way he had said Izaya's name a few minutes ago. "I thought you said…"

Izaya tried to meet his eyes and failed. "I'd really like to go home," he made himself say, staring somewhere under his chin. "If you don't mind."

Silence hovered for a second.

"Yeah," Shizuo replied, more subdued than Izaya had ever heard him. "Yeah, sure. Okay."

He said nothing at all while Izaya stepped backward, all the way to the opening of the street. He didn't try to follow him. The last Izaya saw of him was that strangely mournful face, too close to an apology for him to understand at all.

He felt the imprint of his kiss for hours more.


	17. Shiki x Izaya (2)

Shiki's patience was not his most memorable trait. Most of his colleagues and business partners knew him as a man of short temper, no matter that he seldom yelled or lost his composure. Shiki did not suffer fools, and he did not suffer being made a fool of.

The most infuriating thing about whatever sham of a relationship he had with Izaya was precisely that he had to suffer both.

It was his own personal hell, he thought through the slick drag of Izaya's mouth on his, that this slip of a man was much too striking. It was Shiki's own doom looking back any time he shared a glance with Izaya and understood that Izaya had not called him only for work.

 _Or maybe this is work too_ , he wondered, not for the last time.

The back of Shiki's car was not the best environment for such activities; Izaya had to bend over him in order not to hit his head against its roof, making the space between their breaths too close even when space there was. Shiki was never given the benefit of a second to clear his head in those moments Izaya decided that the line between professional and anything but should be crossed. Lowered eyelashes and a too-hot breath, and he was sat astride Shiki's thin thigh and crushing their mouths together.

It was messy. It always was. Shiki knew his preference for pudeur was ridiculous in light of who he often found himself in bed with, but he couldn't help but wish that Izaya would allow him close-mouthed affection and something akin to respectability. Instead he had to take what was given and hope that the line he walked on didn't slip from under his feet.

So he let the questions go as always; he allowed in the breath from Izaya's own lungs, wet his lips to Izaya's saliva, moved their mouths together in a way oft reserved for bedrooms. Heat prickled up his back and made his loins tighten—and Izaya, as little inclined for mercy in this as he was in everything else, ground down against him and moaned _shamelessly_.

"You said you had to go," Shiki gasped against him.

He felt very much like a man hanging to sanity only by a thread.

Izaya stroked the side of his face with two fingers. He was red in the cheeks, and his eyes were back as night. Blood had swollen his mouth to the point of indecency, and—not for the last time—Shiki felt gripped by the neck at the sight of him alone.

"I changed my mind," Izaya replied.

"I don't have time to fuck you now."

Izaya's smile widened. "No?" he asked slyly.

He didn't have to make a move. Shiki could read skepticism on him as easily as ever. He could guess that Izaya wanted to drag his hand down the length of Shiki's body and grab him between the legs to prove his own words wrong.

He breathed in quietly. When Izaya made to catch his lips again, he turned his head aside to avoid him. "You need to go," he repeated with finality.

Shiki knew what those words would bring out in answer. It didn't make the sudden cold silence any easier to bear, nor did it alleviate the crushing absence of Izaya's body once the other decided to move aside.

"I'm only here as a cover anyway," Izaya said. Shiki didn't attempt to shutter the lie. "I needed an alibi."

"Orihara—"

"Good bye, Shiki-san."

The door of the car opened before Shiki could say more. He paid no mind to the awful winter wind that immediately rushed in the wake of Izaya's departure; instead he watched him walk away with quick steps, clutching his bag under one arm, hood pulled down over his face.

His silhouette was nondescript among the many walking the streets of Shinjuku. Shiki thought he could have found it anyway, even if it stood among a thousand all dressed the same.

One day he'd do something about this, Shiki told himself. One day he'd unravel the many ways in which Izaya had convinced himself that sex was the only way he could connect to someone on a level deeper than the superficial.

One day he'd find whoever had ingrained that lie so deeply in his bones.

For that, he could be patient.


	18. Shinra x Izaya

Mentions of self-harm.

* * *

"I don't understand why you can't get along with him."

"I don't understand why you think I can get along with him," Izaya replies. "He's a brute."

He's scrolling obscure self-harm forums with his laptop on his belly, all spread over Shinra's uncomfortable couch. One picture makes him wince in disgust, and he lifts the device so Shinra can see it and say, "Oh, that's _nasty_."

"I wonder what goes through their heads," Izaya says, chuckling. He scrolls further to read the comment accompanying the photograph.

"You know what goes through their heads, Orihara-kun. You've been reading all those psychology books." Shinra has the gall to sound worried. "Which, by the way, don't you know looking at this stuff makes it more likely for you to do it?"

"As if I'd ever be that stupid."

"Opinions differ on the topic."

Izaya isn't listening anymore. Though all the sob stories on those websites are the same—loneliness, need for attention, all things that leave him faintly nauseated for reasons he doesn't quite understand—he can't stop reading them. One catches his attention long enough for him to read the whole three entries it spreads over.

"I think it's hormones," Shinra declares a few minutes later.

Izaya is in the middle of typing up a false-sympathetic reply to the thread. He stops and bends his neck backward to look at Shinra over the arm of the couch. "What are you talking about?" he asks.

"You and Shizuo," Shinra replies, smiling upside-down at him.

"I thought we were done talking about that."

"I'm only saying!" Shinra talks with his hands when he doesn't care about something; now he isn't, and instead he sits perfectly still in front of his empty cup of tea, one strand of limp hair stuck to his forehead as he examines Izaya. "It's not right that you hate him so much," he says with emphasis—Izaya can't repress a shiver of satisfaction. "You like unusual people. Shizuo-kun is the most unusual person in the world."

"He's boring to me," Izaya says, looking back at the screen.

"Though, of course, it's no surprise that he hates you. You're despicable."

"Thank you, Shinra."

Shinra chuckles, which tells Izaya he's done being serious about talking to him. He masks his disappointment by hitting send on his finely-crafted comment and watching approving responses pop up— _Nakura is right, Chichi-san, don't despair! You're very brave!_

Izaya laughs loudly.

"It's got to be hormones," Shinra is mumbling. "We are living through a highly hormonal period of our lives, after all."

"Why would hormones make me hate that beast?" Izaya asks. He bends the neck again, folding his knees to alleviate some of the tension in his back. "I rather think it's simple survival instinct. Only you wouldn't run in front of such a monster."

"Shizuo-kun's never attacked me," Shinra says dumbly.

"That's because he likes you," Izaya replies.

He frowns as he says it. He's never considered it before, but if Shizuo does indeed like Shinra—

He almost jumps when Shinra's face appears above his. The other boy did not make a single sound as he moved from the table to the side of the couch, but Izaya can't be bothered thinking about that when Shinra bends down until their noses are almost touching.

His heartbeat thrums wildly in his throat. "What are you doing?" he asks, almost afraid of Shinra feeling the words on his face.

What did he eat for lunch again? He hopes nothing especially strong.

Shinra's glasses fall over his nose and knock into Izaya's. Shinra pushes them up again with a finger, his hand brushing over Izaya's cheek, and now Izaya definitely feels the strain in his neck, bending it backwards as far as it will go to put some distance between them. Shinra only follows along, his eyebrows furrowed.

Izaya stops breathing altogether. His whole body is so tense that his belly aches. The room starts turning round when Shinra presses a finger right under Izaya's lips, and Izaya doesn't know if what he feels at the sight of him opening his mouth to speak is fear, or excitement, or—

"You have a zit," Shinra says. "See? Hormones."

He presses onto it with his finger for good measure, making pain spike under Izaya's mouth.

He doesn't laugh when Izaya slaps his hand away and sits up, almost knocking their foreheads together, which is somehow even worse. Izaya thinks he would like it better if Shinra were openly mocking him.

He keeps his back turned away while he waits for the blood to rush out of his face. Meanwhile, Shinra is babbling: "You should take better care of your skin, you know? My dad's shown me all these skincare products, he told me not to listen to anyone who says only girls do that—skincare is important! You—"

"Shinra," Izaya says through clenched teeth. "Shut up."

Shinra, surprisingly, shuts up. After a silent moment he says, "I'll make some more tea."

Izaya stares unseeingly at his screen as Shinra walks to the kitchen and starts making noise there instead. He's lost all interest in the gruesome pictures and stories; he shuts the laptop a little too harshly.

 _I hate Shizu-chan_ , he thinks with renewed violence.

He only feels calmer after that.


End file.
